The Diablo Reactor from Wired2Fire is a desktop PC priced so low that it's hard to justify buying any other PC for your family. Here's our Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor review.

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Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor family PC review

The Diablo Reactor is designed to be a family PC but, thanks to the large Zalman Z3 Plus system case with its transparent side panel, appears rather like an entry-level gamer system. See also: What's the best family PC?

It performs rather like an entry-level gaming system too. With a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i5-4670 quad-core processor at the helm and an AMD Radeon R7 265 graphics card, you know some games are bound to find their way on to the Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor. In our graphics tests, this PC held its own against the competition, turning in fast framerates similar to Chillblast's Fusion Pharaoh; but costing a whopping £130 less.

Discounting the monitor-less Quiet PC UltraNUC Pro XL, the Diablo Reactor combines the fastest gaming performance with the lowest overall price of the family PCs we have reviewed recently. An impressive feat indeed, and yet one major omission prevents us from awarding this PC a Best Buy award.

You will notice that the PCMark benchmark numbers are a little low, especially in the area of storage. This is because the Diablo Reactor has no SSD, leaving the slow 1 TB hard drive as a serious performance bottleneck. The result is a powerful PC at a frankly fantastic price which will play the occasional game at breakneck speeds – but in day-to-day use feels disappointingly sluggish despite its fast processor.

Give us this PC with an SSD or a hybrid hard drive instead of the graphics card and we'd be all over it. The value for money here is truly outstanding, but its tremendous strengths are all in the wrong place for a family PC. For £70 a decent 120 GB SSD could have added to the price, and it would still have left this PC with far and away the best value for money.

A 24in TN-based monitor from AOC and a Lite-On DVD writer are included, both of which are acceptable at this price. See all PC reviews.

Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor family PC benchmarks

PCMark 7 Overall Score 3938

PCMark 7 Lightweight Score 3332

PCMark 7 Productivity 2716

PCMark 7 Entertainment 4527

PCMark 7 Creativity 5884

PCMark 7 Computation 7768

PCMark 7 System Storage 2063

PCMark 8 2.0 Home 4520

PCMark 8 2.0 Work 4705

PCMark 8 2.0 Creative 5110

PCMark 8 2.0 Storage 2584

Alien vs Predator (fps) 83 / 44

Sniper Elite V2 (fps) 240 / 76 /18

Final Fantasy XIV Creation Benchmark (fps) 205 / 49

Power Consumption Idle / Load (watts) 45 / 234

Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor: Specs

Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz (4 cores/ 4 Threads)

Standard Intel Cooler

8GB DDR3 1600MHz

1TB Seagate HDD

FSP 500W (Bronze 80 cert)

Asus B85M-G

3x USB3.0, 6x USB 2.0

24in AOC E2495Sh 1920x1080, TN, (HDMI x2 VGA)

VTX AMD Radeon R7 265 2GB

Onboard audio

Gigabit ethernet

Line Out, Headphone, hdmi audio

Mic

HDMI, DVI, Display Port

PS/2 keyboard and mouse

Zalman Z3 Plus

Octigen Wireless keyboard and mouse

Liteon DVD-Rw

Windows 8.1

Setup support, ongoing support

2 years return to base, full parts and labour

Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz (4 cores/ 4 Threads)

Standard Intel Cooler

8GB DDR3 1600MHz

1TB Seagate HDD

FSP 500W (Bronze 80 cert)

Asus B85M-G

3x USB3.0, 6x USB 2.0

24in AOC E2495Sh 1920x1080, TN, (HDMI x2 VGA)

VTX AMD Radeon R7 265 2GB

Onboard audio

Gigabit ethernet

Line Out, Headphone, hdmi audio

Mic

HDMI, DVI, Display Port

PS/2 keyboard and mouse

Zalman Z3 Plus

Octigen Wireless keyboard and mouse

Liteon DVD-Rw

Windows 8.1

Setup support, ongoing support

2 years return to base, full parts and labour

SHOULD I BUY WIRED2FIRE DIABLO REACTOR?

The Diablo Reactor is priced so low that it's hard to justify any other family PC on the basis of cost. It offers a high-speed processor, along with the best graphics performance of the group and decent entry-level peripherals. However, we're looking for an all-round family PC not a gaming bargain and the lack of an SSD is an omission we simply can't forgive.